At the close of week three in the My Heart Challenge: Play at Home Edition, our 25 contestants have tracked a combined total of more than three million steps. With six weeks to go, we asked our contestants to offer some advice on how others can make heart-healthy changes in their own lives.

During one of the weekly reports submitted by the My Heart Challenge: Play at Home Edition contestants, one woman elaborated on a question asking for any advice they would offer other people who want to become more healthy. She shared some great advice that has worked well for her, and it has applicability to everyone else as well.

It's not easy to change behaviors that have been established over many years. Cutting down on the Mountain Dews, finding motivation to exercise or taking the time to eat breakfast are some of the biggest challenges the 15 firefighters are facing in the 2014 My Heart Challenge.

As a cardiologist at the Intermountain Heart Institute at Intermountain Medical Center in Murray, I get the great pleasure of having people come up to me all the time and ask me what they can do to “protect their hearts." For example, I was at a social function yesterday and someone asked me, “What can I do so that I never have to see you in your office?” I absolutely love it when people ask me this type of a question as it shows their commitment to living a healthy lifestyle.​

According to the World Health Organization, the
average American is disabled with chronic illnesses by age 68. Given that the average life expectancy in the
United States is 78, that means that we can look forward to being disabled with
chronic illnesses the last 10 years of our life! If the average age of retirement is 65 then
that means there are just three “golden years” for the typical American. How depressing!​

​Do you know which risk factors put you most at risk for a heart attack? As an interventional cardiologist at the Intermountain Heart Institute at Intermountain Medical Center in Murray, I've put together six simple questions you should ask yourself to help you know if your heart is healthy.​​

Welcome to the Heart Failure and Transplant program blog. Our clinic resides in the Intermountain Heart Institute at Intermountain Medical Center. My name is Jen Nixon and together with one of my partners, Kismet Rasmusson, we are Nurse Practitioners responsible for program development for our Heart Failure/Transplant clinic.​

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